Damini (1993)

This movie has been sitting on my shelf for ages, and what a beautiful movie it turned out to be when i finally sat down to watch it, a wonderful film on being true to yourself and doing the right thing, all delivered in a non preachy manner

The film starts with this quote by Mahatma Gandhi


Damini (Meenakshi Sheshadri) is a honest good natured girl who lives with her family. While performing at a charity gig alongside Aamir Khan (as himself in a special appearance). Shekhar (Rishi kapoor) the son of a wealthy industrialist who's an audience at the show is smitten by her


Shekhar tracks Damini down and proposes, Damini is taken a back by his advances as she comes from a much poorer family as well as Shekhar's quick marriage proposal.Shekhar's Parents aren't too keen on Damini as she's from a lower ecomomic background but Damini's charming honest nature wins them over and she and Shekhar get married


During Holi festival Shekhar's junior brother Rakesh along with his friends rape the family maid servant 'Urmi'. Damini witnesses the event and runs to get Shekahr to help but by then Rakesh and his friends had gang raped her. I f all their wickendess wasn't enough, they went ahead and dumped her body by the road side


When police come to investigate the matter Damini is told by her in-laws to deny she witnessed the event, they ask her to help protect their family's honour


Damini begins to feel uneasy about the whole issue, she's racked by immense guilt and feels its up to her to get Urmi justice. She confesses the truth to Inspector Ratan (Vijayendra Ghatge) and agrees to testify in court much to the anger of her in-laws who feel she's betraying them



The family are tried to court and The Gupta's appoint Barrister Chhada (Amrish Puri in a swish hairdo) to defend them. Barrister Indrajeet Chhada who is defending the Gupta's comes up with a plan to silence Damini by proving her mentally unstable to the Judge



He does this by various witnesses including her in-laws and her own father, as a result Damini is sentenced to a mental asylum for 2 weeks, there she's administered severe head shocks which starts making her mentally retarded



Damini manages to escape from the mental asylum, while on the run for her life she meets retired disillusioned lawyer Govind. She tells him her story and urges him to take up her case and get Urmi Justice


He agrees and thus commences a big court room showdown

Will Damini get Justice for urmi? Will she be proved as mentally stable? watch Damini for the answers

Damini wthout doubt has to be one of the top drama's produced in 90's bollywood, great direction, great cast and a great story, the film also deals with mutiple issues such as the lengths people would go to protect their honour, maniplulative/exploitative media, corrupt cops and the politics of rape.


This film really had me involved and i kept thinking what would i have done had i been in her shoes, would i have gone with the easy way out and agreed with my in-laws or would i fight for the truth, these are not easy questions and we see Damini's anguish over these not so easy choices. Damini also makes a point of the outspoken woman, who dares speak against the 'patriarchal powers' that be, being punished for daring to make her voice heard.

This film would have scored much higher with me if the director had been a bit more careful with his screenplay for example during Damini's trial her lawyer doesn't object to the intrusive questions Barrister Chhada asks her, the courtroom scenes were sometimes treated as a joke with both lawyers calling each other up but of course i'm sure Rajkumar Santoshi had to strike a right balance between making a powerful drama that would also be commercially successful, and i shall not hold him up for that

Great performance from Meenakshi Sheshadri, i think this is her best ever role, her portrayal of Damini was just right, so much passion, so much guilt, you feel every bit of her anguish/inner turmoil on what choice she should make.


Rumour has it that she quit the film industry as her performance of Damini didn't get her a filmfare best actress award, my dear Meenakshi forget about those award shows what matters is the appreciation and love of the fans. And might i add Meenakshi is such a fabulous intense dancer (check her out doing some traditional Indian dances in the clip below), its no wonder she currently teaches dance lessons in Plano, Texas where she now lives with her husband and kids. For more on what Meenakshi has been up to check out Nicki's great Fan Post



Good performances from Amrish Puri and Sunny Deol as well, who knew Amrish was a computer game freak, he was so funny and over the top as usual, he never bores me


Sunny Deol was loud and his dialogues from this film are said to have been the rage at the time of its release, but since i don't speak hindi i couldn't understand what the fuss was all about, but he delivered his dialogues with much gusto and passion


And of course Rishi shows us his amazing Jumper collection as well


Brilliant songs from Nadeem-Shravan as well, from the melodious 'gawah hain chand tare' which was lifted from the famous African song 'Malaika' (listen to a version of the song by 70's group Boney M. here) 'bin saajan jhoola' where Aamir khan makes a guest appearance and then my favourite has to be 'jab se tumko dekha' with lovely vocals from Kumar Sanu and Sadhana Sargam




Total Score: 7/10 (A highly engaging wonderful drama)

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Laadla (1994)

Long before Meryl Streep played Miranda Prestley in Devil wears Prada there was Sridevi as a no nonsense woman in this moderately entertaining drama

Sheetal Jetley (Sridevi) is a high powered, high achiever, she hates being second in life, the top is the utmost position for her and she strives for this always, She runs her father's company Sheetal's textiles making it the Number 1


One day she comes across Raju (Anil Kapoor), the two are involved in an arguement culminating in him telling her that women should be coy and men be bold


A rival company fronted by Suryadev (Prem Chopra) his son (Monish Behl) and his brother (Paresh Rawal) are jealous of Sheetal's success in leading her father's company to the top, they hatch a plan to get her married to Monish so that they can merge and then eventually take over the company, Sheetal gives them the cold shoulder,this makes them vengeful

Raju saves Sheetal's Dad from villains one day and as a reward he's employed by Sheetal's dad as Chief mechanic in Sheetal Textile Industries, while there Raju he meets and falls for Kaajal (Raveena Tandon)


Raju also gathers a huge following and the workers soon start protesting against the demands of Sheetal. When Raju challenges her ego in front of the workers Sheetal is gutted and plans to avenge his actions by marrying him out of spite, even though she knows he's in love with Kaajal

She manipulates his crippled mother Farida Jalal to get him married to her only, she also bullies her into making Raju come live with her at her place

Raju is releuctant about leaving his mother but she insists and he gets married to her and he promises to come back after teaching her a lesson

When they get married she begins torturing Raj by refusing to have sex with him, she also keeps him as her subordinate, through all this she begins breaking Raju's assertive personality

Meanwhile Mr Bhandari (Shakti Kapoor) who despises Sheila's manipulative ways makes allies with Suryadev's company, together they plan on defaming Sheetal Industries thereby knocking it off the top

Would they be successful? How much more of Sheila's manipulation would Raju be able to take? What would be the end of Sheila, would she die a filmi type bad girl death or would she li=ve to realise the errors(?) of her ways? Watch Laadla to find out

This is without doubt one of Sridevi's finest roles, given the rampant and in fact very true complaints of the lack of strong female characters in bollywood films, Sheetal's role in Laadla (Darling) was a very interesting one, albeit the fact that her character was cast in a negative light, Sridevi shines and gives and excellent performance as Sheetal.


The downsides and in fact the major reason why this interesting drama loses points with me is the fact that Sheetal's egomaniac, inconsiderate attitude was attributed to her education in a western country, in that sense the west is painted as an evil place and in the end when she finally realises the error of her ways she's starts dressing in a Sari (wrong, very wrong). I thought such moral lines were something movies like Jab Jab phool Khile in the '60s sought to convey, and surely film director's in the '90's would have been way enlightened than use such moral codes. At the heart of the film is that which Raju's character had coveyed to Sheetal that men should be bold and women coy (definitely not one i agree with)

A great point akbarnali an imdb commenter makes about Sridevi's role as Sheetal in Laadla is that it paved the way for the bollywood anti-heroine such as that of Kajol in Gupt, Manisha in Dil se & Yugpurush, Juhi Chawla in Arjun Pandit etc

Sridevi was stylish though and she looked fierce in her corporate skirt suits and bobbed hair with bangs

Very Coco Channelesque with the pearls and all


Gotta love that fringe

And of course this film is famous for Sridevi's 'understand, You better understand' dialogue after which she clicks her fingers, you can see it here around the 2.28 mark

'Understand, you better understand'

The music by Anand Milind is good among my favourites are the very 90's romance sounds of 'Meri Dhadkan suno' the infectious 'Ladki hai kya' the heavy rhythms of 'Mere Ghulam' the sentimental 'Teri Ungli Pakadke' which celebrtaes the joy of motherhood and the atypical Sridevi Anil Kapoor seductive song 'Dhak Dhak Dil Dhadak'


Total Score: 6/10 ( An enjoyable even if somewhat flawed moral drama)

Laadla is available with English Subtitles on Youtube in 17 parts

Edited to add
Laadla is a remake of a 1992 Telugu movie called Gharaana Mogudu

Also the late Divya Bharati is said to have been playing the role of Sheetal until her sad and untimely death caused Sridevi to replace her, below is some of the scene's Divya shot, what an awesome actress she is, I wonder what this film would have been like with her as Sheetal 

Aitraaz (2004)

Abbas-Mustan the modern hindi film kings of suspense thrillers strike their rod at yet another hollywood inspired movie 'Disclosure' (1994) which i am yet to see, however i did enjoy this bollycat (bollywood + copy cat=bollycat). I knew i was going to love Aitraaz (Objection) when i realised Amrish Puri & Priyanka Chopra were a couple in it

Priya (kareena Kapoor) an aspiring lawyer lands in Raj's (Akshay Kumar) house after an address mix up on her way to to a job interview

Priya and Raj fall for each other and then get married


They actually made a cute couple, i loved their Jodi

At work Raj is due for a promotion, on the day of his promotion the company chairman Ranjit Roy (Amrish Puri) announces his new wife Sonia (Priyanka Chopra) as the new managing director of the company


Sonia however was once Raj's girlfriend, they had split up when Sonia refused to settle down and marry him, she had also aborted his baby in order to keep herself on top of the modelling world

Sonia the model refuses to give up her job for a baby

I'm not sure Vogue will be happy with the huge samsung logo on the cover of their magazine

Although Raj was due to be promoted to the role of CEO, Sonia changes his role to one of the Board of Directors (i think we all know this means he would have to do some dodgy things for her)

Sonia soon starts seducing Raj, she invites him over to her house begs him to do her, Raj being a nice decent married man declines which sparks Sonia's anger

Sonia then reports to Mr Roy that Raj had tried to rape her, Raj is given the sack

A devastated Raj then decides to fight his dismissal and prove his innocence and Sonia's claim that he had raped her

Will Raj be able to get his life back, Will his wife Priya stick by him, for these and many more hilarious reasons watch Aitraaz to find out

I haven't seen Disclosure which this movie is said to have been inspired from, but i enjoyed this one, the story is entertaining and it held my attention

The star of this movie without doubt is Priyanka Chopra she steals the show as the conniving, sex starved Sonia with much panache and hilarity, she bagged the filmfare best villain award for her portrayal of Sonia Roy

Looks and evil Tactics Sonia

I enjoyed her antics in this, particularly the scene where she begs Raj to have sex with her

I loved her antics when Raj turned her down, i was rolling on the floor with laughter



i loved her bitchy one on one dialogues with Kareena Kapoor


There were some steamy scenes between Akshay and Priyanka as well


Akshay Kumar was calm and in his role of Raj, i think this is the first film where i've seen him act so mellow and not be his usual loud jokey self

Kareena Kapoor barely had much to do till the final scenes where she gives a great performance as her husband's lawyer


Of course it was a pleasure seeing the lovely Amrish Puri in one of his last roles as Priyanka Chopra's partner (what a hot couple na), though i wasn't too pleased that his character was subjected to many Viagra jokes


The music by the lovely Himmesh Reshammiya (why can't people stand this guy, ok i agree his acting isn't on par, but he's a fab music director) is very enjoyable, from the Hip Hop/ R'n'B tinged Gela Gela Gela, the mellow rhythms of 'Woh Tassawer' and Alka Yagnik in full blast and at her best in my favourite song from the film 'Tala Tum Tala Tum'


Total Score: 6.5/10 ( A very Enjoyable thriller drama)

Aitraaz is available in 19 parts with English Subtitles on Youtube

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